Working Stiff (Revivalist #1)

He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out the syringe container; it looked exactly like a silver cigar tube, and he unscrewed it and removed the contents. Great. Another stick. Bryn didn’t look at him as he walked over, took her bared arm, and punched the sharp chisel point into her skin. It was over in seconds, and it didn’t hurt too much, though the lingering afterburn of the injection was annoying.

The two men were watching her with great interest. She frowned at them and said, “What?”

“We’re waiting to see if there’s any kind of unplanned reaction,” Manny explained. “There’s an outside possibility that the nanites could try to resist the secondary agent. That would be … bad.”

“How bad?”

“Oh, you know. Decomposition.” He shrugged. “Probably won’t happen.”

Bryn decided she was going to hate Manny Glickman. Forever. She waited tensely, trying to be alert for any sensations that didn’t belong and trying not to overreact and invent them at the same time. Her two not very compassionate observers sat and waited as the minutes ticked by.

She got permission for a bathroom break at the two-hour mark, and on the way back ran into Pansy, who was coming out of the kitchen carrying a tray loaded down with sandwiches, tea, coffee, and a stack of magazines. “Here,” she said, and handed it to Bryn. “No sense in your being stuck in there without anything to do. There’s a sudoku uzzle book in there, too. And a pen.”

“Not a pencil?”

Pansy winked. “Around here, we do them in ink.”

“Of course you do. Um … thanks. For even thinking about it.”

“That’s why I’m here. To remind Manny to be human every once in a while. You’ve got your work cut out with Pat, though. I’m not sure someone didn’t replace his blood with antifreeze some time ago.”

“I don’t care what’s running through his veins. He’s not my boyfriend.”

“I know that,” Pansy said calmly. “I just meant as a colleague. Of course.”

She so very didn‘t, but Bryn let it go. She headed for the observation room, where McCallister silently rose from his chair and held the door open as she brought the tray in. “Pansy made us lunch,” she said.

“Of course,” McCallister said. “She’s always the practical one.”

“Ooh, peanut butter,” Manny said.

“I rest my case.” McCallister grabbed a sandwich from the tray—probably not peanut butter, Bryn guessed; he’d probably had enough of that at her apartment—and poured himself a cup of coffee. “You feeling all right?”

“You don’t think I’d tell you if I had any doubts? I’m scared to death!”

“Point taken. Coffee?”

“God, yes.” She grabbed a cup and held it while he poured, doctored it with sugar and cream to her satisfaction, and stood there with him downing caffeine. It almost felt … friendly. “I feel fine, just to make it clear.”

“I’m glad.”

“Yeah, I can tell you’re overwhelmed.” She blew on the surface of her coffee, watching him through half-closed eyes as he took a bite of sandwich. “You don’t really work for Pharmadene, do you?”

“Of course I do. Want to see my pay stubs?”

“That’s the most interesting pickup line I’ve heard this week, but no, I don’t think so. You may get paid by Pharmadene, but you don’t work for them. You’ve got another agenda. And maybe another boss.”

“No, no other boss,” he said. “But another agenda might be accurate.”

“Pat,” Manny said in a warning tone, but McCallister raised a hand to stop him “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You go around trusting people, you get a kick in the ribs every time. No matter how pretty they are.”

“Do you say that to Pansy?” McCallister asked.

“Oh, no. I’m not crazy. She might wise up and leave me.”

“If you’ve got something to tell me, say it,” Bryn broke in. “Honestly, I’m so sick of this cloak-and-dagger bullshit!”

McCallister, of course, took a moment to think about it. Just when she was about to throw her coffee at him and tell him to go to hell, he said, “I have a reason for being careful. There have been two other prospects I’ve worked with from Pharmadene’s program. They didn’t work out. That’s why we have the cloak-and-dagger bullshit; I came very close to being exposed by the last one I trusted. I thought that reviving you and being involved start to finish would give us the ability to guarantee you wouldn’t be used and discarded by the company. As you noticed, that wasn’t quite the case. The protocols were still in force, even though I specifically turned them off in your prere-vival profile.”

“You’re blown,” Manny said. “They’ve got to suspect you, if they countermanded that order.”

“Not necessarily. All of my decisions are subject to review by my superior. She might just have done it as a precaution, not out of any suspicion. I could easily say it was a clerical error.”

“Your superior’s Irene Harte,” Bryn said softly. The one who’d treated her like a walking, talking asset that had reached the end of its once-useful life. “Does she suspect you?”

“Irene suspects everyone. It’s her job.”

“You said you had an agenda.”

“I didn’t, at first,” McCallister said. “I took the job in good faith, and for the first year, it was fine. Normal corporate security issues, a few employees diddling the books or stealing from the supply rooms or cooking expenses. Then two scientists invented Returné, and everything changed overnight. It wasn’t a company anymore; it was an armed camp. The implications of what they have are staggering.”

“Department of Defense,” Bryn said.

“Oh, they’ll sell it to the government, but Pharmadene has bigger plans than a defense contract. Before they jump, they want to be sure what they have, and what they can do with it. Why make an official deal when they can sell it under the table as a black-market terrorist’s wet dream?” McCallister sounded grim, and certain. “I knew how it was going to play. Someone had to do something. I thought about blowing the whistle, but there’s nobody I can go to who won’t get sucked into the whirlpool. The government? It has to be destroyed from inside.”

“How’s that working out for you?” Manny asked. It sounded cynical, as if he already knew the answer.

“You know how it’s working out. Pharmadene constantly monitors its own employees—computer activity, e-mails, phone calls, physical surveillance. I’m no exception to that. Harte will be suspicious today, after Bryn and I drop out of sight for a few hours and it’s clear that I’ve covered my trail.” Manny opened his mouth, but McCallister bulled straight ahead. “I planned for that, Manny. It won’t lead back to you.”

“The fuck it won’t!” Manny said, and stood up to pace around the room in agitation. “All right, that’s it. You’re my friend, and I owe you, but I’m not getting in over my head with Pharmadene. Not with them. You take her and you go. Don’t bother to come back. I’m moving the lab.”

“Manny.”

“No!” Manny swung around on him and pointed a shaking finger in his face. “No! You know how I feel about this. I do not take chances with my safety, or Pansy’s. Not anymore.” He left the room and slammed the door so hard the entire clear plastic structure of rooms rattled uneasily.

McCallister watched him go, and took another bite of his sandwich, which he chewed and swallowed before he said, “Pansy will calm him down.”

“Is he always like this? Or is this just a really bad day?”

“Actually, it’s a fairly good one.”

“God. And you trust this guy?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

McCallister glanced at her, then went back to watching Manny stalk around the lab, randomly touching things as if it were a calming ritual. “Manny had a very bad time a few years back. He worked with the FBI.”

“One of those profiler people?”

“No. He was a rock star in the lab. A genius, but a pure science geek. He never wanted to be out in the field, not for any reason.”

“But something happened.”

McCallister loosened his tie and sat back with a sigh. “He put a puzzle together, a serial killer’s messages to the agents who were hunting him That brought him to the killer’s attention. As soon as Manny identified him, the killer grabbed him at his apartment, gave him a paralyzing agent, and buried him alive in a graveyard, with one air tank.”

Bryn shivered. That was one of her nightmares now—being sealed in a body bag alive, being buried alive and conscious. That was all too possible a future for her, and she could well imagine the terror. “He got out.”

“No,” McCallister said. “He was found. The tank had run out.”

“You found him, didn’t you? That’s what he owes you for.”

McCallister looked away. “I helped find him. I provided information, and led the FBI to him.”

“God, that must have been … How long was he down?”

“Two hours. One hour breathing from the tank, one hour breathing the foul air in that coffin. He had to force himself to take slow, calm breaths, and he didn’t know whether anyone would find him.” He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know how he did it. I would have died before help arrived. But … he came out different from the way he went in—there’s no question about that. He was always OCD, but now he’s completely off the reservation about personal safety. He quit the FBI, took up private practice, and he moves around. A lot. He’s got patrons. I don’t even know how many, but enough to keep him funded.”